Tales From the Box

Let’s face it – we are all going green. And if you haven’t been swept up in the greenie goodness, you soon will be- either by complying to environmental factors when building any type of home , using cleaner electricity either from renewable/alternate sources of energy or simply using better light bulbs, or from buying a rain water tank and getting some hard earned cash back for your troubles.

We bought a tank. And I am proud of my tank (as said photo demonstrates). We live in a water-conscious world and a tank is small way that I can do my bit to recycle, to continue to keep my small patch of the world green. Seven years of drought and 10 out of 11 years of below average rainfall have changed our perceptions of how we value water.

For me, the water revolution has impacted me marginally. Like all, I take shorter showers, wash the car with a bucket, do bigger loads of washing, but in reality this is a small, insignificant sacrifice compared to the hardships that are endured by those living on the land where every drop is precious, and every drop literally translates into survival. The biggest impact on me personally is keeping the natural environment around me green and lush. Not being able to water my garden frustrates me – seeing trees die that you have planted and nurtured is deflating. Thus a big shiny tank was necessary.

Tank selection is now like buying a new car. A visit to my local tank retailer turned what I thought would be a simple decision into a complicated and highly provoking one. PVC, corrugated, tall, squat, round, square, oval, coated, colour, pump, first flush. These are the tank terms specific to these tank tales.

At the moment, buying a tank isn’t as easy as rocking up with your trailer and taking one home. There is about a 12-15 week wait on most tanks at the moment with some places not delivering until late July/early August.

I chose my tank based on 3 points. Price, availability and flexibility. I purchased a 10,000 litre Aqua Clear Tank, made from Bluescope Aquaplate corregated steel with a galvanized exterior. Aquaplate steel has a plastic lining which prevents corrosion and that yucky metal taste from infiltrating the water. Suprisingly the steel tank was much cheaper than a PVC tank and had a much shorter turnaround than the PVC (4 weeks compared to 15 weeks). The practicality of a steel tank is worth addressing. Most PVC tanks have special mounts for intake, outlet and tap fittings. If those areas don’t correspond to the orientation of your tank, you then end up with a mess of plumbing to solve this.

Tank site is also important. We relocated our shed to use the solid foundation of the shed slab, as well as making use of the location of the slab in relation to the house. Our tank is plumbed underground using a gravity level method, rather than a drainpipe method which runs directly into the top of the tank. Also the slab itself needs to be sturdy. Remember that 1 litre of water weighs 1kg and 10000 litres is 10 tons in weight. Our tank installer recalled some very messy situations where tanks had sunk into the ground because the base was dodgy.

Currently our tank is empty (or near empty). We had the wettest beginning to a year in 10 years while they were completing the building of our house, but since the tank has been completed we have had next to nothing. However our roof will catch 55,000 litres of rain every year of average rainfall. How do I get this figure? For every millimetre of rain that falls on a square metre, 1 litre of water is captured. We get 1,050mm on average a year, thus 55,000 litres.

Our tank stands proud and ready to capture the rain that should fall over the next 8 weeks. Hopefully we can get it full enough to get us through the dry of winter and spring.